Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

So there is a new Pope.  They probably didn't pick him this way.

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 6 Key Things You Should Know About Pope Francis. (The Week)
• How the Conclave Picks a Pope: By the Numbers. (NYMag)
• 5 Things About Popes and Their Names; Like, Why Do They Change Them? (NPR)
• Boehner Turns Down Invitation to Visit Pope. President Obama invited John Boehner to travel with Vice President Joe Biden to Rome to watch the Roman Catholic Church install its first pope from the Americas in its 2,000-year history. (WSJ Video)
• How Rich Is the Catholic Church? Nobody really knows, because religious groups don’t need to follow regular accounting and disclosure rules. (Slate)

 

Trading Links:

• Lessons From Past Dow Milestones. (MarketWatch)
• Could the Dow really reach 36,000? Surge greeted by at least one outlandish prediction (TW)
• Secret and Lies of the Bailout. Taibbi warns the worst may be yet to come. (RollingStone)
• Move Over, Goldman. College grads are clamoring to work for a different firm this year. (TDB)
• Amazon Launches ‘Amazon Coins’ In Its First Move Into Virtual Currency. (TechCrunch)

If the World Were 100 People ...

As we enter 2013, the world population has surpassed 7 billion people.

How can we get a sense of what it means ... and who we are?

One way is by statistically representing the world population as 100 people.  That way, complex issues become more comprehensible and help us get a stronger sense of the big picture.

Here is a video introduction to the 100 Person Project.

 

The 100 People Project: An Introduction from 100 People Foundation on Vimeo.

 

And here is an infographic of some of the highlights of the research.

 

by KVSStudio. Check out our data visualization blog.

 

If the World were 100 PEOPLE:

50 would be female
50 would be male

26 would be children
There would be 74 adults,
8 of whom would be 65 and older

There would be:
60 Asians
15 Africans
14 people from the Americas
11 Europeans

33 Christians
22 Muslims
14 Hindus
7 Buddhists
12 people who practice other religions
12 people who would not be aligned with a religion

12 would speak Chinese
5 would speak Spanish
5 would speak English
3 would speak Arabic
3 would speak Hindi
3 would speak Bengali
3 would speak Portuguese
2 would speak Russian
2 would speak Japanese
62 would speak other languages

83 would be able to read and write; 17 would not

7 would have a college degree
22 would own or share a computer

77 people would have a place to shelter them
from the wind and the rain, but 23 would not

1 would be dying of starvation
15 would be undernourished
21 would be overweight

87 would have access to safe drinking water
13 people would have no clean, safe water to drink

 

If you want more information on this ...

The detailed research and source information can be found here and the statistics provided by Donella Meadows in 1990 that originally inspired the 100 People Project can be viewed here. A different groups research is here. And the Snopes research is here.

Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song Video

It that time of year again.  Wow, how time flies.

To my Jewish friends, Happy Chanukah.

As a gift to all of you, here is "The Chanukah Song," performed by comedian Adam Sandler on Saturday Night Live.  It became an instant classic, since he first performed it in 1994.

Here is the video.

 

 

 

Here is the Wikipedia post about the Chanukah Song.

He has updated it since then.  Here is Sandler's Version 2.

And, here is Sandler's Version 3.  Hope you enjoy them ... and best wishes for a happy holiday season.

Related articles

The Most Viral Hanukkah Videos Ever

8 Festive YouTube Videos for Your Hanukkah Celebration

Adam Sandler's Thanksgiving Song [VIDEO]

Have A Happy Hanukkah With Chutzpah's 'Chanukah's Da Bomb'

Here Are Some Interesting Links to Read This Weekend

The iPhone 5 is cutting edge ... and Siri is getting smarter.  Too bad it can't answer the tough questions.  Here's a cartoon that imagines what would happen if asked "Can the economy be fixed in the current political climate?"

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 10 Strategies That Made Bill Clinton’s DNC Speech Effective. (Poynter)
• Atheism: The Growing Disbelief. (Economist)
• A Tricky Equation. Parents Who Hate Math. (Wall Street Journal Video)
• How All 50 States Got Their Names. (MentalFloss)
• Sounds Like a Fun Job. Corporate Futurist. Telling plausible, provocative, fictional stories that are based on facts. (Slate)

 

Trading Links:

• Can the Stock Market Rally Last Through the 2012 Election? (FuturesMag)
• Goldman Sachs’s MIST Topping BRICs as Smaller Markets Outperform. (Bloomberg)
• Home Prices Headed Up 7%? After a six-year decline, things are starting to look up. (Barrons)
• Searching for a Speed Limit in High-Frequency Trading. Critics’ Target HFT. (NYTimes)
• SunTrust Sells Coca-Cola Stake After 93 Years, Collects a Tidy Two Million Percent Return. (Forbes)

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Having just come back from the Jersey Shore, where Cheesteak sandwiches seemingly grow like grass ...

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• Integrate Data into Products, or Get Left Behind. (Harvard Business Review)
• Confessions of an Ex-Mormon. (TheNewRepublic)
• How To Win an Olympic Event. Great Interactive Graphic series. (NYTimes)
• How To Win Marathons? Hint. It doesn’t involve fancy footwear. (TheGlobalMail)
• The Strongest Man in the World. A new era of strength competitions tests the limits of the human body. (TheNewYorker)

 

Trading Links:

• Was the Financial Crisis a Male Syndrome? (Businessweek)
• Why I Rarely Short Anymore. (UpsideTrader)
• Amazon ‘Robo-Pricing’ Sparks Fears. (FT)
• Is the Postal Service About to Default on Its Bills? (Wall Street Journal)
• The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia. How America's biggest banks took part in a nationwide bid-rigging conspiracy. (RollingStone)

A Little Monday Morning Motivation - The Power of Pause

I spent part of this week at the First Rate Performance Conference. It was held at the Four Seasons resort in Las Colinas, Texas (which is a pretty nice place for a retreat).

In addition to hearing industry experts and company representatives talking about equations, risk management, and regulatory compliance, the conference featured Terry Hershey, who wrote a book called The Power of Pause (Becoming More by Doing Less).

In the book, Terry counters the modern cultural decree of More-Bigger-Faster.  His message was simple (and perhaps even easy). 

One of the takeaways was that some things are tactical, some things are strategic, and some things are transformational. All of these things can be good ... but the quality of your life and the results results you get change as you spend less time with the tactical and move towards the transformational.

Hershey is a story-teller.  Here is one of them:

 

A teacher gave her class an assignment to name the seven wonders of the world.

Each student came up with a list and shared with the class. As you might guess, students called out entries like the Pyramids, the Amazon River, the Grand Canyon, or the Taj Mahal. The teacher cheered them on and told them what a great job they were doing.

But one girl stayed silent. The teacher asked her about her list, and the girl answered, "I don't think I understand the assignment."

"Why?"

"I don't have any of the right answers."

"Well, why don't you tell us which you wrote on your paper, and we'll help you."

"Okay," said the girl, "I think the seven wonders of the world are ... to see, to hear, to touch, to smell, to feel, to love, and to belong."

 

Somewhere along the way, we tend to forget what we used to know.

How much of our daily experience is defined by what we shoot for and what we measure?

Life can be so "daily". That's a problem, isn't it?  No wonder we're easily tempted by things that are urgent, rather than important. But it doesn't have to be that way ... and the first step is recognizing that it doesn't have to be that way. The second step is figuring out how you want it to be instead.

To see some of his messages in video format, click this link.

Related articles

• Harvard Business: The Power of Pause (blogs.hbr.org)

Funny Video: Using "S*** Happens" to Explain Economics

You don't normally see an economist do a stand-up routine.

And you could assume that economist Yoram Bauman doesn't usually swear while giving a speech ... but it's unavoidable in this routine ("S*** happens: the economics version").

 

 

This take-off on the old joke about explaining world religions (using the same construct) was filmed at the 2012 American Economic Association humor session.

It's even a little funny that the AEA had a humor session.

Click here for more Stand-up Economist videos.

Related articles

• What's so funny about money? (newscientist.com)
• Interview with Stand Up economist Yoram Bauman (calculatedriskblog.com)

Stephen Hawking Shares Thoughts on the Universe, Religion, and Love

Celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking knows more about the universe than almost any other person ever to walk the planet, but some answers still escape even him.

When asked by ABC News' Diane Sawyer about the biggest mystery he'd like solved, he said, "I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing." 

Other topics covered include: how Hawking reconciles the idea of religion and science; and what he considers the best and worst decisions of our generation.

So, watch this video as the physicist discusses everything from the universe to family.

Here is more from Diane Sawyer's interview with Stephen Hawking.

Here is a picture showing Hawking trying out Zero Gravity.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Stephen Hawking On Religion: 'Science Will Win' (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Father de Souza: Why there is something, not nothing (fullcomment.nationalpost.com)
• Stephen Hawking says Earth should not phone ET (newscientist.com)
• Theories of everything: Seven ways to know God's mind (newscientist.com)
• 10 cool things you didn't know about Stephen Hawking (holykaw.alltop.com)

Past Performance Doesn't Limit the Future

How will history view the past decade?

In my holiday greeting, this year, I chose the phrase: "I hope that you are grateful for the things that are great in your life, that you choose what you can use from the things weren't great … and that you invest those lessons in your future."

We can learn from history, so we don't have to repeat it (unless we choose to).

For Your New Year, Here is an Old Irish Blessing.

Here's to the bright New Year,

And a fond farewell to the old;

Here's to the things that are yet to come,

And to the memories that we hold.

May God be with you and bless you.

May the best of this year be the worst of the next.

May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings.

May you know nothing but happiness.

From this day forward ...

Happy New Year!

Genius Catalyst Tips

I enjoy Michael Neill's work.It combines business understanding, common-sense, and a little bit more.

His Genius Catalyst Tip-of-the-Day is often terrific.  Here is an example of one of them.

My Favorite Prayer.

Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others.

    - Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love

When I was around 25 years old, I had the dubious distinction of being brought in as a "ringer" for a UK baseball team based in South London. The assumption was that as an American, I must be genetically crafted for optimal baseball action. Unfortunately, as I was only an average player when I stopped playing at 14 and this was a team made up of former minor leaguers and die hard British jocks, I turned out to be less of a ringer and more of a dead loss.

Our team batted first and keen to maximize the advantage I was sure to bring them, I was first up. 80 mile per hour fast balls whizzed by my head, and the highlights of my first at bat were a) not dying and b) actually touching the ball with my bat on one pitch. (The ball promptly ignored my bat and continued unimpeded on its journey to the catcher's mitt).

Disappointed, the team captain sent me out to right field to lick my wounds and I thought about what I could do to keep the day from being a complete waste. Suddenly, a prayer popped into my head:

Give me a chance to serve, using the gifts that I have.

Not being a particularly religious right fielder, I can't say who or what I was praying to, but the words kept coming like a mantra:

Give me a chance to serve, using the gifts that I have.

Despite my early failure, I knew I must have some relevant gifts for the task at hand. After all, I reasoned, I was a reasonably fast runner. I could throw a ball in something resembling a straight line. And while I was a great proponent of Dr. Arthur Slater-Hammel's 1950 study which "proved" that it is physically impossible for a human being to hit a baseball :-), I did know how to catch one. Suddenly I was excited instead of scared, leaning forward instead of back, and looking for opportunities to put my gifts to use instead of waiting for the chance to hide my inadequacies and run from my failings.

Within a few minutes of beginning my prayer, my first "chance to serve" came - a line drive over the second baseman's head. I ran in, stuck out my glove, and caught the ball to end the inning. Suddenly I was 'one of the guys' again, and I engaged with the game and my teammates in a whole new way for the rest of the day.

Although my exploits on the field quickly faded into obscurity, the power of that prayer stayed with me:

Give me a chance to serve, using the gifts that I have.

Here's a few distinctions I've made in living that prayer during the ensuing years...

1. Give me a chance to serve...

About a year ago, I was discussing with a friend my goal of increasing the readership of these tips to 100,000 people by the year 2005. "Oh," she replied. "You want to expand your ministry." After gagging on my cappuccino, I spent the next hour arguing that the word 'ministry' was totally inappropriate for what I do.

When I calmed down, I did some research. Turns out 'ministry' is a wonderful word. While I had always used it to refer to either religious proselytizing or the home of a government organization (like the Ministry of Defense or the lesser known but much more fun Ministry of Sound :-), "ministry" actually refers to the act of ministration - being of service to, aiding, and assisting those around us.

To expand your ministry simply means to be of more service to those around you, be it through your work, your family, or your faith. Here's how George Bernard Shaw put it:

"I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

By thinking of our lives as our ministry, we will find ourselves surrounded by opportunities in any moment to be of service. And each opportunity for service brings with it the opportunity for fulfillment, meaning, and joy.

2. ...using the gifts that I have.

I have always thought and taught that our gifts are those things in your life that come naturally to you, without any undue personal effort or struggle. Another way of identifying your gifts is to think of your strengths - those skills, abilities, or personality traits you exhibit which are so much a part of that you can't remember learning them and can't imagine not having them.

Martin Seligman is a former president of the American Psychological Association and long-time researcher into depression and learned helplessness who more recently turned his life's work on its head to become a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology. Over the past few years, he and his research team have identified 24 'signature strengths' - core traits that are valuable in their own right but even more so when you put them into action in the service of your highest values and purpose.

Here are the 24 strengths:

1. Curiosity/Interest in the world	2. Love of Learning
3. Judgement/Critical thinking/Open-mindedness	4. Ingenuity/Originality/Street Smarts
5. Social Intelligence/Emotional Intelligence	6. Perspective
7. Valor/Bravery	8.Perseverance/Industry/Diligence
9. Integrity/Genuineness/Honesty	10. Kindness/Generosity
11. Loving/Allowing Oneself to be Loved	12. Citizenship/Duty/Teamwork/Loyalty
13.Fairness/Equality	14. Leadership
15. Self-control	16. Prudence/Discretion/Caution
17. Humility/Modesty	18. Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence
19. Gratitude	20. Hope/Optimism/Future-Mindedness
21.Spirituality/Sense of Purpose/Faith/Religiousness	22. Forgiveness/Mercy
23. Playfulness/Humor	24. Zest/Passion/Enthusiasm

As Seligman says in the book Authentic Happiness:

"Herein is my formulation of the good life: Using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of your life to bring abundant gratification and authentic happiness."

In response to which I would simply say: Give me a chance to serve, using the gifts that I have.

Today's Experiment:

1. Go to the Authentic Happiness website, and take the online VIA Strengths Survey. After identifying your top 2 or 3 strengths, look for opportunities to put them to use throughout the week.

2. Ponder these words from Quaker Faith and Practice - Advices and Queries :

Live adventurously. When choices arise, do you take the way that offers the fullest opportunity for the use of your gifts in the service of God and the community?

3.  Let your life speak." If your life could speak, what would it be saying? What would you like it to say?

4. Just for fun, try your luck at hitting a 90 mph fastball online by going to the Exploratorium.

Have fun, learn heaps, and let your life speak!

________________________________________

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His tip is Copyright 2001-2009 - Genius Catalyst / Michael Neill. All Rights Reserved.